Page 101 of Winter at Wishington Bay
‘I had planned to tell you. I promise.’
He nodded.
‘With everything else spinning in my head, it threw me. All of a sudden, I felt like maybe I’d been stupid again. That what we’d had was a lie too. That you’d kept secrets from me and the woman I’d fallen in love with wasn’t who I thought she was.’
The tears had welled in my eyes at his words, and my throat felt sore and tight. ‘The only difference is that my real name is a bit longer than I originally said. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before.’
His hand rose again to my face, his thumb brushing away a stray tear. ‘I know that now. I reacted badly, and for that I’ll never forgive myself. My relationship with Serena had made me jump to the wrong conclusions about everything, and I am so worried I’ve ruined what we had by acting like I did. There’s no excuse.’
‘The way you looked at me…’ I swallowed. ‘It hurt so much…’ The pain in his eyes showed me he knew that. And that he cared deeply that he had. ‘But I understand too. When we’re in a difficult situation we don’t always act in the most rational way.’
He dropped his hand and shook his head. ‘Don’t forgive me.’
‘What?’
‘You can’t just forgive me like that. That easily. You’re supposed to stamp and scream and, I don’t know, do something.’
I frowned, half laughing, half crying. ‘That’s not really my style. And why shouldn’t I forgive you? You apologised and explained and even faced an unruly mob of reporters to come to me.’
‘But I’m not sure I deserve it.’ He tilted his head, then leant it against mine. ‘I’m not sure I deserve you.’
I pushed him back gently. ‘Both of us have had bad relationships and those leave scars. All we can do is try to learn and heal from those. We’re bound to muck up sometimes. That’s human nature. But if we’re truly sorry, and we grow from it, there’s no reason to keep being made to pay for it.’
‘What did I ever do to deserve meeting you?’
I lowered my eyes and concentrated on his large, strong hand holding mine.
‘Where’s Serena now?’
‘On a plane back home, I imagine. Although I screwed it up, seeing you at that moment was the best thing that could have happened. It gave me that clarity I was talking about. I told Serena it was over once and for all and that I’d pay for her flight back home and call her a cab. A mate of mine is the divorce lawyer. I spoke to him straight after, asking him to gee things along a bit. The fact that he’d said “about time” when I rang him initially about all this probably gives you some idea of what the few friends I’ve managed to hang on to thought about my marriage.’
‘No one can really judge anyone else’s relationship properly. It’s all relative to how they see it, and that can sometimes be quite different to how those involved see it.’
‘That’s true. Although, on this occasion, I have to concede he was right.’
I smiled, but my stomach was still in knots. There was a question to ask and, although it was gnawing at me, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to know the answer. Still, I had to ask.
‘So, what happens now?’
‘That depends on you.’
‘Me?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why?’
Nate let out a sigh. ‘Because if all this has shown me one thing, apart from how I can act like a complete idiot at times, it’s that somewhere along the line, I’ve fallen completely, head over heels, absolutely madly in love with you. And right now, I’m not entirely sure what to do about it.’
‘Oh,’ I replied. Good to see that my expensive education was coming into its own right now.
‘When I told Serena to leave, she started harping on about how you’d lied to me and that you would again. The fact that she could say all that with a straight face amazed me but still… But you never lied to me. I realised that almost as soon as I’d shut the door and possibly messed up the best thing that’s ever happened to me. You never lied to any of us. You just kept certain things private, and that’s your prerogative. Those things don’t make any difference to who you are, or who you’ve been to everyone here.’
‘How did she know who I was?’
‘She’s always been obsessed by English aristocracy for some reason. Reads all the gossip and magazines and all the who’s who stuff. It’s always been a thing of hers. I think ideally she’d have loved to land a duke or something.’
‘I guess that explains things. It’s a shame she wasn’t nicer to me. I know a few I could have introduced her to.’
